How One Person Works for Change

What change is needed in the world that only you can make?

This was a tough question for me at first. Many of the world's most urgent issues exceed the capacity of any one human, no matter how talented, to resolve by individual effort alone. Granted, an individual's work can inspire others by example, but systems and conditions outside their control have a lot of influence over how much meaningful change comes to pass.

In order to answer that question, I decided first to narrow down changes which would fall within the scope of individual capability.

Many large-scale environmental issues can only be dealt with and mitigated through society-wide shifts in behavior and value. The same would be true for poverty, systematic prejudice, and warfare. Even the most successful activists and reformers started on the progress made by others. Furthermore, they had to have supporters gained either by friendship or inspiration willing to follow in their footsteps, in order to make a foothold for transition. That, I think, is the closest an individual can come to single-handedly bringing revolutionary change.

When talking about individual change, then, perhaps we should lower the bar a bit. In “Forest Man”, the change shown is a local one. Planting the forest was a long-term, individual effort to resolve a local environmental problem, namely, the island's gradual erosion into the Brahmaputra River.

After watching the video, I think I have something like an answer. The change I make would have to be an endeavor within my ability, most feasibly one which benefits the area in which I live. To that end, I recall an activity I used to regularly engage in for community service hours in junior high and highschool: picking up trash along the roads in and near my hometown.

Thus, I submit that the change in the world that I, and only I, could make; or part of it, at least. It boils down to roadside trash clean-up in my hometown.

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